So the really fucked up thing about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is that itās impossible to explain to people how bad it really is and how horrible it makes me feel without sounding like Iām just a baby who canāt control my feelings and lacks confidence.
Itās impossible to fully express, as a 40-year-old woman, that I do have confidence in myself - most of the time I think Iām pretty awesome - but that any person, stranger or friend, who says anything to me that indicates that they think Iām less than them, has the capacity to reduce me to a quivering mess of tears and anxiety in a matter of seconds.
Itās impossible to explain that when I think about that time I got in trouble for not updating a website correctly and being written up, an event which happened fifteen years and five jobs ago, at a job I had for less than a year, working for people I didnāt like or respect and whose names I donāt even remember, I still feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that makes me want to throw up and cry and quit my current (awesome) job because I am clearly the worst at everything and nobody should ever pay me because I am so incompetent.
Itās impossible to describe the feeling of posting merrily away on a Big Internet Site and being called an idiot or spoken down to or condescended to or even strongly disagreed with, and then feeling so ashamed and angry and anxious that I rage-quit the entire site, knowing full well the person who said that to me never gave it another thought, and knowing even harder that I will never, ever forget the time I got absolutely fucking destroyed for suggesting a non-violent solution to bullying, and that memory will serve as an ever-present reminder that I am worthless and
Following that path, I donāt know how to explain that when someone tells me Iām stupid or shitty or lazy or inauthentic or mean or less than, I immediately believe them, and it feels like violence, and I donāt know how to express how dumb it is that I, a full-ass grown adult, routinely cry over people being slightly mean to me, and no matter what I accomplish in my life or how far I go or how much I heal or how confident I become, still feel like every mean comment is like a punch to my throat that makes my eyes water and my teeth grind and my skin crawl and my stomach heave, and there is nothing, apparently, that I can do to make that stop. Itās like Iām made of badly-formed glass and the slightest wrong touch will shatter me.
I know what I look like, and I know how this looks to anyone on the outside of my brain. I didnāt even do a good job explaining it here. Whatever, RSD, yay. Thanks for that.
